August 16, 2010
Dreadful Things Happen: The Brothers Grimm & Maurice Sendak @ the Rosenbach Museum

Inside the Rosenbach's historic house, Photo courtesy the Rosenbach Museum
Most people know the more famous fairy tales retold by the Brothers Grimm — Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Hansel and Gretel, Rapunzel, etc. But the original stories the brothers told are often far darker and more disturbing than the popular versions relayed to children today. Maurice Sendak preferred those more chilling variations and has illustrated these stories often throughout his career.
In it’s continuing effort to cover all things Sendak, the Rosenbach Museum and Gallery has collected an assortment of his sketches, inspirations, final illustrations and musings on the Grimm tales in its summer exhibit Dreadful Things Happen: The Brothers Grimm and Maurice Sendak.
The small exhibition is broken into four sections, each taking its name from a recurring lesson in the fairy tales and displaying Sendak’s wide variety of illustrations along with a bit of perspective on the stories themselves.
Sendak fans will see many similarities between his work and these folk tales, from children with a bit too much independence to many instances of less-than stellar parenting. But the real value of the exhibit is in the many different styles Sendak used to depict these stories. Yes, Where the Wild Things Are’s illustrations are great, but the guy was capable of a whole lot more.









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